


The Life of the World in Flux

by interstitial, TigerLilyNoh



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Character of Color, Dean is Important to the Story But Isn't In It, Dubious Consent Due to Alcohol and Effects of Captivity, Enemies to Lovers, Interracial Relationship, M/M, Mention of Past Canon Suicidal Ideation, Post-Episode: s13e23 Let the Good Times Roll, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sam Has Incestuous Feelings Towards Dean But Has Never Revealed Them, Sam Winchester Big Bang 2019, Unrequited Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-15
Updated: 2019-02-15
Packaged: 2019-10-27 19:40:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17773022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/interstitial/pseuds/interstitial, https://archiveofourown.org/users/TigerLilyNoh/pseuds/TigerLilyNoh
Summary: After13x23: Let the Good Times Roll, the bunker is full of refugees, and Dean is possessed by Michael, who is missing in action. Fortunately, Sam knows a spell to find an angel using its grace, and Michael’s ex-vessel from Apocalypse World survived his possession with some grace left to spare. But the situation is more complicated than Sam had anticipated.  He struggles with his feelings for Dean, discovers the ex-vessel’s identity, and gets reminded the hard way there's more than one use for an archangel's grace.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much to my wonderful artist, [TigerLilyNoh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TigerLilyNoh/pseuds/TigerLilyNoh), whose amazing art for this story, as well as notes and the hilarious censored version of her art, can be seen [here](https://tigerlilynoh.tumblr.com/post/182818952893/art-masterpost-the-life-of-the-world-in-flux). And check out her own awesome Sam Winchester Big Bang story [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17619365/chapters/41539673) as well. I was immensely happy she picked up my fic, and working with her was a pleasure and an honor. Thanks also to my great beta, [juliasets](https://archiveofourown.org/users/juliasets/pseuds/juliasets), for making my story much better, and to [themegalosaurus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/themegalosaurus/pseuds/themegalosaurus), for running a wonderful challenge with dedication and skill.

The man's name is Winchester. That's what the nurse with the sparkly purple stethoscope and the Hello Kitty scrubs says when she directs 'Agent Bonham' to room 317 of the Neurosurgical ICU. Winchester hasn't spoken, but he had ID on him when he was dropped off unconscious at the community hospital he was airlifted from.

She flashes Sam a smile, professionally perky. She'll leave Sam to it, but don't expect too much. Winchester might be more aware once the swelling in his brain goes down; it's too soon to say. Sam can always come back in a couple of days.

She trundles off to her other duties, and Sam knocks on the aluminum door frame. There is no door, or maybe it's just retracted into the glass front wall of the room somehow. The man inside is visible from the hall in all his betubed and monitored glory, too medically unstable for privacy. He has a surgical dressing behind one temple held in place by a headband of gauze, and his hands are tied with powder-blue medical restraints to the frame of his bed. The setup around him is typical ICU. IV poles and esoteric machines crowd every corner, and the man—Winchester—is connected to almost all of them.

Sam's first thought—his very first thought on seeing the poor guy lying there, gravely injured after being used and abandoned by Michael and mojo-zapped nearly to death by Jack—is how much he looks like Dean.

Which just goes to show Sam's state of mind, because not only is it a weirdly random and inappropriate thought for the occasion, it's also not even marginally true.

There’s the obvious part: the man in the hospital bed is African-American, with copper brown skin, and what's left after neurosurgery of a sharp black fade. And there's the marginally less obvious: he was possessed a little younger than the age Dean is now—he's missing Dean's crow's feet at the corners of his dark brown eyes and the laugh lines Dean has beside his lips. He's more ripped than Dean too, body almost as carefully curated as Sam's was when he was soulless. He's got two tattoos—one on each bicep—to Dean's one; and if Sam could see under the covers, he'd probably turn out not to have the little outward bow to his legs that Sam knows he shouldn't love so much on Dean, but nonetheless does.

Still, there's an uncanny almost-perfection to them both that makes the comparison feel right. Some nameless quality that Sam's been watching on Dean for as long as he remembers; something that in the right light, when Dean's drenched in monster guts and grinning like he won the lottery, makes him look more like a painting than a person. Makes him almost too beautiful to be true.

Sam shudders and swallows hard; it's not as pleasant a thought as one might imagine. He clears his throat, and Mr. Winchester—the other Mr. Winchester, the one who isn't Sam, and more importantly, isn't Dean—turns his head to Sam, but that's it; no other acknowledgment, no recognition, no emotion at all.

The nurse said to expect it. Sam goes in.

"I'm uh—" He was about to give his alias, but it feels wrong, and he can't quite manage it.

"I'm Sam," he says instead, "Sam Winchester. Mind if I have a seat?"

Nothing.

Sam pulls the undersized visitor's chair up to the bed and sits down. He shouldn't have eaten the pancakes Jack made him for breakfast. He looks at the blankness left behind by an archangel, and he wants to throw up.

"I don't know if you remember me. I uh—" Sam checks over his shoulder, but no one is in hearing distance. He sits forward on the edge of his chair, closer to the bed, and speaks in an undertone anyway. "When Michael, um. Left you? That was my brother, Dean, he took instead. I need to find him."

The man—Winchester—blinks slowly. His eyes are glassy and his skin has a dull blue tinge under the brown. He pulls absently at his restraints, stares down at one of his wrists with a perplexed frown.

"Listen, uh—" Sam leans across Winchester's bed and takes the chart hanging from the footboard. The label on the top left corner says WINCHESTER, ADAM. DOB 05/02/1972.

Adam.

Jesus fuck.

Sam's pulse pounds in his ears. The room seems suddenly hot and claustrophobic.

Adam—the Adam from this universe, who Sam dragged into Hell—is still in the Cage, and will probably never leave it, and for just a moment Sam hates Chuck, and all the goddamn angels, and he wishes Amara had offed them all, every single one of them, and screw the sun dying, who even cares.

Then he hates himself with equal vehemence. When was the last time he even thought of Adam, let alone considered attempting a rescue? God, how can he live with himself?

And then it passes.

Dean is gone, and Sam has a job to do.

"Listen, Adam. Can I call you Adam? Is that okay?"

Adam Winchester, ex-vessel of Michael from another world, doesn't answer. He gazes blankly around the room. His eyes stop briefly on the television, and then the window, where the sky is that weird thick gray that sometimes comes before a howling storm, and sometimes never delivers. Sam hopes it rains. He hates the sun when Dean is gone, too jarring and unreal when everything's flat and grief-blurred on the inside.

He rifles through Adam Winchester's bedside chest of drawers. The top drawer holds an ugly pink emesis basin, some spare oxygen tubing, a hospital issue tiny tube of toothpaste and a travel sized bar of soap. The second drawer down has Adam's shirt and pants. His wallet is on top of the folded pile.

Sam thumbs through the compartments. There's money; a driver's license from Lawrence, Kansas; and a government ID, issued in 2009 by the ‘Great Barren Plains Regional Military Authority’. He must not have consented right away then. He was still himself long enough to see the collapse of his world.

"I need your help with something, Adam. There's a spell."

Adam doesn't ignore Sam, because that would imply he knows Sam is there at all. He leans his head back into his pillow, and his eyelids slip closed. The beep beep beep of his heart monitor is hypnotically steady.

Tucked into the rearmost pocket of Adam's wallet is a faded black and white photograph of John Winchester. He's painfully young and wearing a flak jacket and fatigues. He's smiling in a bright, uncomplicated way Sam doesn't remember ever seeing, and his arm is around a laughing young woman who has an afro, a stethoscope, and a medical insignia on her uniform. Behind them is a corner of a military tent, a few letters of a stencil painted sign.

Sam shouldn't be here. His stomach aches, and he's exhausted even though it's only ten a.m. The antique glass syringe he’s carrying precariously in the inner pocket of his suit jacket can’t really be cold— it’s been there for hours—but every time he moves, and it smacks against his chest, he breaks out in goosebumps. Adam has—Sam counts them—five different IV medications running into him, keeping him alive. He has oxygen tubing in his nose. He's tied down and he's impaired, and a grace extraction would probably kill him.

Sam gives up his best chance at finding Dean, returns his chair to the corner of the room where he got it, and takes his leave. The perky nurse waves at him on the way out.

 

-*-*-

When Sam gets back to the bunker, it’s crowded and busy, as it always is these days. Mom and Cas both greet him, and Mom puts a plateful of food in his hands. He eats without much attention while he listens to the status reports of his teams of insurgents-turned-hunters. They're looking for Michael, most of them. A few are taking monster cases or salt and burns. When he's heard them all, he scrapes the rest of his lunch into the trash without having paid enough attention to know what he ate, puts his plate in the sink, and heads to the dungeon to tend to Nick.

"You should've done it anyway," Nick says matter-of-factly, while Sam pours saline over a pack of gauze. "You could still go back and get the grace before it fades. If he dies, so what? He'd thank you for it."

"Too bad I can't use your grace if it's such a favor," Sam snaps. It arrives in his mouth razor sharp and unfair, and he says it before he thinks, feels a pang of guilt in his chest immediately after. Nick's a victim too, and it's not 'his' grace. It's Lucifer's. He agreed to share his body with a monster, but so have Sam and Cas, and now Dean too.

Nick frowns and looks away, picks at an invisible piece of nothing on the back of his hand. "Yeah," he says, "it is too bad."

He hikes up his shirt, and Sam pulls off the dressing underneath as gently as he can. Nick flinches away, his stomach muscles contracting and a breath hissing out between his teeth. The edges of the wound are inflamed and angry, and the puncture site oozes discharge that looks like pea soup and smells like death.

Cas soul-checked Nick when they brought him back to the bunker. Lucifer’s grace is too far infiltrated to remove, grown into his soul like barbed wire into the trunk of a tree. It would be useless for the finding spell anyway, since Lucifer isn't the angel they're searching for. But Sam remembers the Morningstar’s mocking voice in those first days after the loss of the wall— _It ends when you can’t take it anymore, Sam. I think that’s why we’re cleaning our guns_ —and he can hardly blame Nick for wanting it out of him, regardless of usefulness or price.

Still though.

"I'm not gonna kill Adam."

Nick shrugs. "Your call. All I'm saying is, who wants to live like that?"

 

-*-*-

"You did want me to keep going even though it was killing you," Cas points out from over the book of 18th century summoning spells he's studying, "and Gadreel was relatively careful with you. Michael is unlikely to have been as kind."  
The library table, where Cas has cleared himself a small island of reading space, is cluttered with the detritus of the search for Dean: books from the archives, more books on loan or stolen from religious libraries, pages of notes taken by Sam, reports from Sam's teams of hunters, pens, newspapers, an empty coffee cup, and Sam's laptop.

Sam rubs his hand across his face in frustration. God, he's tired. He tries not to think about his hand on Kevin's forehead; the smell of burning meat.

"So, what?" he asks. "You're agreeing with Nick? I should kill an innocent man for a spell we’re not even sure will work?"

"That's not what I'm saying at all, Sam." Cas looks irritated and exhausted too. The bags under his eyes are decidedly un-angel-like. "I'm merely suggesting in the end a grace extraction may be our only alternative. We need to consider how long we're willing to deliberate before then."

Sam sighs, sits down across from Cas, and pulls the book currently at the top of his unread stack over. The _Clavis Inferni_. Great.

"I want Dean out from under that monster’s control yesterday too," he says, “believe me. But Michael’s old vessel; he's as much a victim as Dean is, I can't just— There has to be a better way. How much time before there’s not enough grace left to use?”

Cas tilts his head a little, and his eyes take on that momentary faraway look they get when he's sorting through his millennia-long storehouse of knowledge.

“I'm unsure," he reports. "With lower level angels the grace degrades quickly. But when I healed you after the Cage, there was still enough of Lucifer’s grace left to be damaging your soul, and months had passed at that point. I would guess we have weeks, possibly longer."

"Okay, lets keeping looking for now then. At least until the guy"—Sam stops himself, makes himself use Adam Winchester's name. It sits on his tongue like a lump of lead and makes his stomach roil with guilt, but it's unfair and cowardly not to—"until _Adam_ is a little more stable. We'd be trading his life for Dean's freedom. I don’t see how I can justify it."

"Can't you?" Cas asks.

He hands Sam one of the newspapers. It's current; dated September 23, 2018, from Louisville, Kentucky. The front page headline exclaims in bombastic 48 point print: ‘BLIND RAGE’ KILLER STRIKES AGAIN: 3 NEW DEAD, EYES BURNED OUT.

 

-*-*-

That night, Sam dreams of Adam—the other Adam. The one in Hell.

In the dream, Adam is a single huddled presence in an enormous city of stone. Michael's True Form surrounds him, a raging inferno, sweeping out in wings of fire around him like a phoenix. Sam blinks, and Michael is a blank and empty darkness with a tiny gray speck at its center. He blinks again and Michael is an enormous monster, a universe of gills and thorns and tentacles and teeth. He's all of those things at once, an impossible collection of unsorted Creation, and he holds Adam at his center like a jealous lover.

Sam is frozen in his tracks, too afraid to run.

Adam raises his head from where he was cradling it between his knees. His movements are the uncoordinated string-pulls of a marionette as he rises to his feet. He looks at Sam with flat, unseeing eyes.

He speaks, and his mouth shapes words, but his voice is drowned, as the fire and the darkness and the monster all speak too, an ear-piercing hurricane of sound.

"Where are you, brother?" it all screams. "Why haven't you come for me?"


	2. Chapter 2

Six days later there are no further clues to Dean's whereabouts. The deaths in Louisville were a bust; clearly an angel, but one who left no other trail.

Sam goes back to the hospital. He brings the syringe again, and this time he brings Castiel too.

"Get that thing away from me," Adam snarls as they walk in the door of his new room. He's graduated from the ICU, and apparently from being mostly-catatonic too.

Sam looks behind him, not sure what 'thing' Adam is referring to, then realizes he means Cas.

"He's one of the good guys," Sam says. "You remember us?"

Adam’s new room is a double, although the second bed is empty, thank god, or the situation would be even more complicated than it is. Adam's been freed from his restraints, and from most of the tubes and machines that connected him to life when he was in the ICU. He's still hooked up to an IV, and his heart rhythm still scrolls by in neon green on a screen above his head, but compared to before, he looks ready to run a marathon. His color is better; rich and deep, with no sickly blue underneath. His head isn't bandaged anymore, though one side is covered only by stubble, and a horseshoe line of stitches curves above and behind his ear.

"Yeah, I remember you. Lucifer’s other vessel. And Castiel," he hisses, and Sam remembers only then that the Castiel from Adam's universe was an enthusiastic and effective torturer for Michael. "He leaves now, or you both do."

"I'll wait in the hall," Cas offers. Adam's eyes stay glued to him until he disappears from view.

Sam helps himself to another in his decade's long string of identical hospital visitor's chairs. He's in his Fed suit again, and he uses his Fed manners as carefully as he would on a witness. He gauges his distance from the bed—far enough away to be nonthreatening, close enough to convey empathy—places the chair there, and perches himself on it.

"You look a lot better," he observes.

"Yeah, I'm peachy," Adam says flatly. His tone isn't really that close to Dean's, but the word choice makes Sam's chest ache.

"Can I ask you something?"

Adam rolls his eyes. Makes a _be my guest_ motion with the hand that doesn't have an IV in it. "You're here, aren't you."

"You seem, um," Sam takes a deep breath. Starts over. "I know possession takes a toll. Last time I visited—"

"You were here before?"

Huh.

"I came while you were in the ICU. You were—"

"A few pancakes short of a stack. Yeah, I got that, thanks."

Adam's eyes keep darting to the door.

"Cas won’t hurt you. He's not like the one from your world," Sam offers. "He exhausted his mojo healing you. You never would've made it to the ER alive without him."

Adam makes a dismissive sound in the back of his throat. "Why is he here?"

Sam explains about the location spell again. Adam crosses his arms over his chest and frowns, unimpressed. The IV beeps and he absently straightens his arm back out to silence it.

"Fine, that's why you're here. But it doesn't explain the Enforcer of the Lord."

Adam is... really hostile. It's not like Sam expected this to be a trip to the ice cream parlor, but after the last visit, he wasn't prepared for a huge ball of anger either.

He feels like his tie is too tight. It makes him anxious, like he can't breathe right, even though he knows he actually doing fine. He loosens the knot, but with that distraction managed, he just notices how the shoulders of his jacket bunch. And if he fixes that, he already knows he'll be bothered by something else. Dean loves the FBI suits, never fails to get a kick out of playing dress up, but on Sam it's all a lie.

"I thought you might still be nonverbal," he says earnestly, "and I imagine you've had enough things done to you without your permission since Michael possessed you. I hoped Cas could talk to you."

Adam shrinks back against his pillows, and Sam likes that even less than he liked the anger.

"How would an angel talk to me if you couldn't? Dream walk? I was too sick to ask directly, so your backup plan was sneak another angel in me?"

Put like that it sounds bad.

"And you think I'll still cooperate? No way."

Because, Sam guesses, it is bad, and he and Dean have just gotten so accustomed to worse that a little uninvited dream walking seems minor by comparison. He remembers Gadreel, in that imaginary cabin in Sam's dying mind, so earnest and convincing, pretending to be Dean.

"Look, I know it’s not great, but Cas was only going to talk to you."

"Well, now you can talk to me, and I'll tell you exactly what I would've told that thing in the hall: I'm done. Get out."

"Cas isn't—"

"Out."

Adam's hand goes to the controls built into his bedrail. His fingers hover over the red button there for a moment while he looks grimly down the hall again. Then he stabs at it, and a voice crackles from the inset speaker.

“Can I help you?”

“I’m getting tired,” Adam says, eyes hard and unyielding on Sam, “Can you show my visitors out?”

He puts his hand over speaker. “Security here is armed. Won't stop an angel, but it'll sure make a hell of a mess.”

Sam gives Adam his FBI card as he leaves. “Call anytime, day or night, if you change your mind.”

What more can he do?

 

-*-*-

People keep dying, because that's how it goes when a monster with the power of a god is out roaming around.

The kills have no obvious pattern, beyond all being an angel's work. Sometimes it'll be one poor sucker on the East Coast, and then another one later the same day in Oregon, and sometimes it'll be four all in one city. The bunker keeps getting busier and more hectic, and Sam keeps working more and sleeping less. Some days, Cas has to remind him to attend to his personal hygiene. The beard he's growing because he can't be bothered to shave it off itches, and he's losing muscle he can't afford to because he keeps forgetting to eat. He'd be embarrassed by it all if he had the energy to spare.

“Rowena, he won’t do it. I’d have to take the grace by force,” he explains none too patiently into his phone. Rowena is in New Orleans, procuring ingredients for her Caging spell in case they manage to somehow find both Michael and the hyperbolic pulse generator.

“And the problem with that is what exactly?” Rowena asks tartly.

“Rowena—”

Sam's laptop pings with incoming mail. It's a coroner's report snapshotted by Jules on another of the bodies. Sam scrolls through it with one hand while he holds the phone to his ear with the other.

“If I recall correctly," Rowena says, "the last time Dean was in desperate circumstances, you kept me chained in a warehouse, forced me to kill the wee young man I once foolishly loved, engaged in a rather indiscriminate amount of torture—“

"Gee thanks for reminding me, Rowena. Because I’m not stressed enough already."

Maggie comes in with another armload of assorted priceless manuscripts from the storage rooms to sort.

"Here you go, Chief," she says cheerfully.

Sam mouths _library_ under his breath at her, but it’s too late; she’s already dropping the whole pile on the map table, where the bottom one will pick up the grease paint notations on the map, and stain.

“—and coerced me into releasing a universe-destroying entity from the _Book of the Damned._ So forgive me if I find the Saint Samuel routine unconvincing."

Sam sighs and rubs the spot above his eyebrows where a migraine is developing. He’s starting to hate it when Rowena calls.

It's not that she’s wrong.

When Dean is—

Well, when Dean is _gone_ , the limits Sam keeps for himself corrode with frightening rapidity. He starts to forget who he wants to be—who _Sam_ is—and the longer it goes on, the more he becomes nothing but his need, some boundless and terrifying force in a person-shaped container he no longer even recognizes.

So yes, of course he knows he's playing against the clock, and not just because the longer he delays, the more people die and the more Dean suffers.

But Rowena is just so goddamned _practical._ Surely they still have options. When Sam lets himself imagine the needle in Adam’s neck, the luminous swirl of Michael’s grace as it enters the syringe, his skin crawls and he breaks out into a clammy sweat, and his thoughts shy away like minnows in a murky pond, until he can't see anything but stirred up mud and algae.

“Maybe I’m trying to be a better person,” he says, although he doesn't think that explains it even minimally.

“Are you, Sam? Because it looks to me as if your feelings of guilt are making you squeamish. And it’s a bit late for that now, wouldn't you say?”

 

-*-*-

It's two-thirty a.m. and the crescent moon is drowned out by the lights of the hospital complex the next time Sam visits Adam. The parking garage is nearly empty, the corridors even more so. The sounds of gossip and music turned low escape from the nurses' station down the hall from Adam's room, but the staff is easy enough to avoid, and he and Dean have broken into so many pharmacies over the years that disabling the lock on the medication cart and pilfering the morphine is second nature.

He didn’t bother with the Fed suit this time. The Men of Letters’ bespelled syringe is easier to carry in the deep pocket of his Carhartt, and feigning good intentions isn’t on the menu for the night’s activities. He waits out the security guard's rounds in a supply closet, then slips into Adam's room.

Adam snores reassuringly, while Sam’s eyes adjust to the dark. The under-bed safety light and the glowing numbers on the IV pump lend the room an eerie atmosphere of comfort mixed with barely staved-off disaster, as if this and all the other rooms each have their own dedicated reaper, waiting quietly on call in the corner.

Adam is peacefully asleep on his back, one arm under the covers and the other laid across his chest. His head is tilted to the side, facing the darkness outside his half-closed venetian blinds. His lips are parted just a little. He looks young and innocent, and Sam has to take a few deep breaths to steel himself for the task at hand. The thought of drugging an injured man makes him queasy—though he routinely does much worse—but he remembers too the needle in his own neck; the disproportionate pain as the Men of Letters’ magic untwined Gadreel’s grace from his body and soul. There’s no way in Hell Adam’s going to sleep through that unassisted.

Sam pats his pocket automatically for the glass Men of Letters syringe, then flips the cap off the plastic morphine one. He bends down over Adam's bed, morphine in one hand and the tubing connecting Adam to his IV pump in the other. The line is twisted near the spot the needle enters Adam’s skin, and the port for injecting medications is underneath his wrist.

Sam lifts Adam’s hand as gently as he possibly can, but apparently not gently enough, because Adam's eyes snap open like he’d never been asleep in the first place.

His arm shoots up, lightning fast, something jagged and glinting metallically in the dim light in his hand. Sam moves to block, but Adam is strong and quick, and has surprise on his side, and the fight is over before it begins. Pain explodes along Sam's temple as his head rocks back with the force of whatever Adam hit him with. Everything sparkles and spins, and Sam’s feet refuse to support him. He crumples against the bedrail and slides to the floor, and then there's only the quiet, peaceful dark.


	3. Chapter 3

Sam is at the club on Bay St., near the admissions office, where he and Jess used to go before it got renovated and the cover got outrageous. It's on fire—literally on fire; flames crawling up the walls and smoke poisoning the air—and the dance floor is a jam packed inferno of the dead and dying.

Jess is already gone, her hair fanned out and burned around her head like a bright white corona, her body dropped back to the floor by gravity when whatever task her death accomplished was done. Dad is gone too, replaced by an empty chalk outline, cut out and separated from the jungle of corpses around it. Jo and Ellen and Ash and Bobby and Rufus and Charlie and Eileen and Mick and Amy and Emma and Meg and Ruby and Crowley and Benny and that poor vegetarian vampire girl and all the brainwashed Men of Letters Sam killed and all the monsters they've dispatched over the years, the ones Sam is sure were good clean kills, and the ones they'll never know—all of them are piled up on the dance floor, some of them curled up lying immobile as stone and others still on their feet and swaying in the updraft like a fiery orange forest of kelp.

Sam is screaming for Dean, but the pileup of corpses is too high to see over. Sam's lungs are a mass of pain from breathing the superheated air, and his hands are burned raw from pushing past the dying. He remembers the cage at the back of the floor, where the strippers dance on weekends in their go-go boots and skimpy outfits, and it occurs to him it must be where Dean is. He shoulders his way through the wasteland of his and Dean's dead, but when he reaches the black iron bars of the Cage, he can tell that the hunched over figure with his back to Sam is not his brother.

"Where's Dean?" Sam asks. "Who are you?"

The man turns to Sam, wraps his hands around the bars. His body is blurry and indistinct, drifting between forms like a shapeshifter mid-transition. At first Sam thinks he’s Adam—the Adam Sam pulled into Hell. Then he thinks he’s the Adam from the hospital. Then he’s not even sure the thing is human. Its fingers snap and sharpen into claws; its long, black tongue licks blood from around its mouth.  
"Don't you remember?” it says. “I’m you, Sam."

 

-*-*-

Sam wakes up tied to a chair. His hands are behind the chair back, prickly with pins and needles from the tightness of the rope. His ankles are tied to the chair legs, and his feet feel leaden and numb. His neck has a crick in it from resting unconscious slumped forward, and his head is pounding from the blow that knocked him out.

Wherever he is, it smells like coffee.

" 'Morning, Sam. Time to rise and shine," his captor says. Unsurprisingly, the voice is Adam’s. Sam gives up the possibility of playing possum, and opens his eyes.

They're in the kitchen of an obviously abandoned house. The flowered wallpaper is peeling and moldy and there are holes in the drywall behind it. Broken dishes lay discarded on the counters. Sunlight filters through the moth-eaten curtains and paints abstract designs on the floor.

Adam is sitting at a rickety table, unwrapping some kind of fast food breakfast sandwich from its cheery yellow packaging. Sam's laptop is open in front of him, a Starbucks venti coffee cup beside it.  
"I don't spose you'd like to tell me the password?" Adam asks wryly.

Sam doesn't bother to answer. He rolls his head and shrugs his shoulders, shifts his weight around on the chair, and stretches out his aching muscles the little he can. He tests for play in the ropes, but there's none.

If Adam's got the laptop, then he's got the Impala too. And all the weapons in the Impala's trunk.

"I was a hunter before Michael possessed me," Adam says. "I've tied up a lotta people; you're not getting loose."

Great.

"So here's the deal, Sam—" Adam takes a drink from his enormous cup. His face relaxes into a contented 'first sip of the morning' smile. It probably isn't specifically calculated to piss his coffee-less prisoner off, but it's irritating nonetheless.

"The angels have my mom," he says, "I held up my end of the Michael bargain, fair and square, and now Michael's done using me, and I want her back. Only thing is, she's on the opposite side of the rift."

He puts his coffee down and picks up his breakfast sandwich with both hands, like a hamburger. It's an English muffin with puffy white processed eggs between the halves. He takes a bite, and whistles appreciatively. "Wow, food, man. I really missed it. You want some?"

"Um," Sam says. The change of topic is a bit whiplash-y, but if it gets Adam to untie his hands, whatever. "Sure, I guess. That'd be great. I need the bathroom too."

Adam rolls his eyes. "Of course you do."

He keeps eating.

"I was awake when Michael and Lucifer opened the rift," he says, "so I know the spell. But I need the ingredients, and someone with the power to cast it."

Sam shifts his weight on the wooden seat, trying to get comfortable. The chair is too small for him, and having his ankles tied to it means his legs are bent up at a weird angle and his ass aches already even though he only just woke up.

"Look, Adam. I'm sorry about the hospital, but—"

"Nah, it's fine. We've both got something we want; can't fault you for pursuing it." He smiles genially, looks Sam in the eye, open and frank. But underneath, there's something flat. "You get I'm gonna do what I need to though, right? Just like you'd do for Dean?"

And of course Sam _does_ get it. Adam’s a Winchester, and the genes bred true. Nothing the angels like better than excessive devotion to family.

"I'll help you, Adam, okay?" Sam says. The finding spell will be a loss, and it makes Sam ill to think of it, but he also can't afford the time it'll take him to escape.

“All this”—he tugs on the ropes binding his hands—“isn’t necessary. I've got the spell components back at the bunker. And Rowena, the witch who opened the rift for us, can do it for you too."

Adam eyes Sam suspiciously. Takes a sip of his coffee. A bite of his sandwich. A wren sings outside.

"Not happening," Adam says. "How 'bout this instead: you tell me where to find the ingredients somewhere that isn't your magic fallout shelter full of insurgents who hate me, then you cast the spell for me, and then I let you go."

“Adam—"

“I’d be an idiot to trust you, Sam. Let’s just do it my way and get it over with. I’d rather not hurt you, but I burned my entire world for my mom; don’t make the mistake of thinking a little torture is beneath me.”

Adam finishes off his English muffin, licks his fingers, crumples up the wrapper and throws it back in the bag.

He unwraps a second one and brings it over to Sam. He stands between Sam's tied legs, uncomfortably close, and tears off a bite-sized piece.

"Little cold now, sorry about that." He holds the bit of muffin in front of Sam's lips.

"You're kidding me."

Adam has the nerve to look legitimately offended. "You didn't really think I was gonna untie you to eat, did you? Sheesh, Sam, I told you I'm a hunter."

He's still got the bite of sandwich held up to Sam's mouth, off white of toast between his slim, dark fingers. Sam thinks about taking the bit of food between his teeth. Of the tips of Adam's fingers in his mouth, their weight and the taste of butter on his tongue.

The summer Sam was thirteen, he and Dean stayed in a long-term rental outside Anniston, Alabama, while Dad was out hunting a, well, Sam doesn’t remember what now, actually.

Dean had a girl he’d bring around, Suzie or Sarah or Cindy or something, and the three of them would sit out on the pool deck while the sun beat down on their shoulders, tanning Sam and burning Dean a peeling freckled pink that made Sam’s stomach hurt for reasons he was only beginning to understand. Sam was reading _The Lord of the Rings_ for the fourth time, and Dean and Cindy-or-whoever would sit together on a single ratty lounge chair and whisper and tease until Sam would get so agitated he’d stalk back inside to the broken air conditioner, where at least he didn't have to hear the bright peal of some stupid civilian girl’s innocent laughter.

One particularly hot day, Cindy had showed up on her bike in her cut offs and bikini top and flip-flops, one hand on the handlebars, the other precariously balancing one of those pints of over-ripe strawberries they’d sell cheap at all the farm stands. Sam and Dean had swum some training laps like obedient hunter clones for a while, but then they’d goofed off for a lot longer, and Sam was in a pretty good mood.

Dean laid down at the poolside with his ass on a motel towel and his skin glistening with water, and lazed all falsely casual like a tiger after a kill, and Cindy fed him strawberries from her hand. Sam watched his brother's white teeth bite into the overripe fruit and his plush lips wrap around some town girl's fingers, and bright red juice escape from the corner of his mouth and drip down onto his chin, and Sam burned with impotent, directionless anger. It was the first time he knew for sure the nature of what was wrong with him.

Now he swallows dryly.

"No way," he says. "I'm not that fucking hungry."

"Suit yourself," Adam replies. “More for me.”

He eats the bit himself, and tosses the rest of the McMuffin on the table. "You still wanna piss, or are you gonna be all precious about that too?"

 

-*-*-

Sam is not precious about the bathroom. He's been a prisoner enough times to know better.

Adam handles the whole endeavor with annoying attention to detail though, and reveals no weaknesses for Sam to take advantage of. Handcuffs go on Sam's wrists before they walk down the hall, and Adam keeps Sam's Taurus trained on him while Sam does his business. When he's done and washed up, he gets put back in the chair. When Adam starts to tie him, Sam positions his hands for maximum play between his wrists, but Adam just slaps his bicep lightly, says _cut it out,_ and gets back to work.

Sam is a model prisoner everywhere it doesn't impact his chance for escape. Run or get let go, either way he needs out—Dean needs him out—and he doesn't much care how he gets there. He tries to be cooperative, answers Adam’s questions honestly. But what Adam wants from him is impossible, and it’s wearing. Sam can only say he doesn't have the power Michael claimed he does, or that the Tree of Life is in Syria and Adam doesn't have a passport, so many times before his temper frays.

Adam’s none too pleased either, but the promised torture never materializes. They argue, and Adam gets up in Sam's space. Adam's fists are clenched, and his expression is closed off and flat. Sam braces himself, but Adam just turns on his heel and leaves the kitchen without a word. A door slams, and the distinctive growl of the Impala starting up filters through the window.

Sam's shoulders burn. His head aches. He works on the ropes tying his hands, but they're tight and anchored to the chair somehow, and he mostly only succeeds in abrading his wrists. He's thirsty, and even if he's too stressed to feel much hunger, his growling stomach keeps reminding him he shouldn't have looked a gift-McMuffin in the mouth.

He needs his strength.

He misses Dean.

 

-*-*-

The sun is down by the time Adam gets back.

"Sorry, he says, "I had a lot to get done."

He drops a couple bags on the table, one from a liquor store and another with cartoon pandas on it. A couple more with Target logos get left on the floor. He unpacks the ones on the table first: a pay-as-you-go smartphone, a six pack of beer and a bottle of whiskey, takeout in little white boxes with wire handles.

"Adam, this isn't gonna work," Sam tries desperately. His situation isn't really that bad. It's just, Dean's is, and the isolation hasn't helped Sam stop dwelling on it. "Let me bring you back to the bunker. I swear I'll—"  
Adam ignores him. "You want Chinese, Sam?" he interrupts. "You must be starving."

Sam doesn't want Chinese at all. He wants to go home, and he wants Dean back from Michael, and that's pretty much it. But to get those things, he needs calories and hydration, so he nods.

Adam spoons out two servings of mixed Chinese fast food; pork dumplings, fried rice, beef lo mein. He brings Sam his portion before he eats his own this time.

"I had to pawn a couple of your weapons," he says. "I hope you don't mind. Flashing 'Richard Sambora's' credit card around is a losing game for a guy with my skin tone."

He stands between Sam's legs again, cuts off a bite of dumpling with the side of his plastic fork and spears it with the tines. He holds it up to Sam's mouth. Sam grits his metaphorical teeth, and opens his actual mouth, and lets himself be fed.


	4. Chapter 4

Sam's third night in the abandoned house, he wakes to Adam thrashing and whimpering in the room's only bed. Sam is on the floor, his hands cuffed together around one of the bed legs in front of him. Adam is above his line of sight. He gave Sam the blankets from the Impala's trunk for a bedroll, but now the ratty bedspread and top sheet have slid to the floor too.

"Adam! Hey, Adam! You okay up there?" Sam calls.

Adam gasps, mutters _fuck_ under his breath, and the thrashing stops.

"Yeah, I'm fine." He doesn't sound fine, except in the Winchester sense of the word, but he at least sounds like he's not being attacked somewhere up there where Sam can't see him.

"Nightmare?"

Adam makes a noncommittal noise and reaches down for the sheet and bedspread. He's fully dressed, like Sam is, boots and everything. He painted devil's traps and angel warding in front of all the doors the day they got here, and he's salted the thresholds both nights before going to sleep, but the house is too old and broken down to ever make truly secure.

"You're not dying or anything, are you?" Sam asks dryly, " 'Cause maybe uncuff me first if you are."

Adam snorts.

"Nah, I'm good. Just a dream." It's carefully casual, the strain in his voice tightly contained. The bed creaks softly as he gets himself settled. "Go back to sleep, I'm sure neither of us'll buy it before morning."

Sam can't really straighten out his bedroll much, but by wriggling around some and nudging it with his head, he can at least reposition his one musty pillow. He's quiet for a while, does some deep breathing exercises and tries not to think about Dean. His hip bone digs into the floor when he lays on his side, because a blanket over hardwood isn't much of a mattress. But for captivity, it could be a lot worse.

Adam's bed groans when he changes positions, too frequently for him to be asleep. His covers rustle, and in the stillness Sam can hear his breathing too, rapid and hitched, like maybe he's crying.

It's a private set of sounds. Adam hasn't asked him to interfere.

Sam didn't ask to be handcuffed to Adam's bed either though.

"Worried about your mom?" he asks.

Adam sighs. "The angels've had her for years. She's either okay or she isn't."

"Mmm. Still, you're free of Michael now, right? So you’re thinking you should be trying harder? Or doing more, or something?"

The bed creaks again, Adam shifting his weight. He doesn't say anything.

"It's uh. I know it's hard," Sam goes on. "You're doing better than I usually do. I can't handle myself when Dean's gone."

"You'll get him back," Adam says kindly.

"I guess, yeah."

They're both quiet for a bit. Adam's breathing is more easy. They could go back to sleep. But three days of enforced isolation and inactivity have made Sam talkative, and that plus Adam's placement somewhere off in the dark that Sam can't get to, form a little bubble where honesty feels safer than usual, and maybe more necessary too.

"There's an Adam here too," Sam says. Admits, really. "He's my half-brother. John's his dad, like you, but he's got a different mom. He let our Michael possess him, so he could— God, our families are really fucked up, aren't they?—could be with his mom in Heaven. But then I pulled him into the Cage with me, and he never got out."

Now Sam kind of wants to cry. Whoever said confession is good for the soul must not have had as much to confess as Sam does.

"You were in the Cage?" Adam asks.

"With Lucifer, yeah. And Michael and Adam. I let Lucifer possess me, so we could trap him there. It's uh, it's a long story."

Adam doesn’t push.

The night is warm around them.

It _is_ a long story. Turns out though, they've got plenty of time.

 

-*-*-

Sam's fourth afternoon at the abandoned house is spent alone, as usual. As evening falls, Adam comes back from replicating the research Sam's already done once himself on the rift spell ingredients, and told Adam word for word. He's bearing Mexican food this time, and another six pack of beer.

He apologizes—one of those infuriating _I really am sorry, but I'm not about to stop_ apologies—unties Sam, and cuffs his wrists in front of him where he can use his hands a little. He sets Sam up at the rickety table across from him, with a beer and a paper plate of enchiladas and Spanish rice.

Sam's shoulders burn from having his hands behind his back all day, and his fingers feel numb around his plastic fork. He's been getting progressively closer to the end of his freak out rope about Dean, and while he'd like to say it makes him even more determined to escape, what it really makes him is ridiculously anxious, and grateful for any distraction at all.

They talk about magic and its complications while they eat, and about their respective universes and the timeline split. The enchiladas are decent, but Sam's nauseous all the time now, and can't finish what's on his plate.  
Adam frowns at him while he scrapes the leftovers into the overflowing trash can.

"Want another beer?" he asks, and that's how Sam notices his first one's gone. He's a little dizzy already—no doubt dehydrated—and he shouldn't accept. Cas must be looking for him—Sam's been incommunicado for a suspiciously long time—but Dean's in trouble and Adam's good, and however long it takes Cas to find Sam, or for Adam to make a mistake that Sam can exploit, is already too long.

And worse, Sam finds he kinda likes Adam. He's smart, and steady, and generous where he can be, within the parameters of his hopeless belief he's gonna find his own way home. He loves his mother fiercely and feels guilty about his errors.

He brings Sam the second beer, and pours a shot of whiskey into his empty Starbucks cup for himself. He drinks like Dean does, prodigiously and without getting visibly drunk.

"So what're you gonna do once you rescue your mom?" Sam asks. The beer's nice. He's starting to feel a bit insulated from the low level panic that's been his companion since—well, actually, since he doesn't remember when.  
A long time. There’s always some disaster brewing. Well before Michael took Dean.

"Dunno," Adam says. "Haven't thought much about it. My whole world is pretty much toast. I should try to do the super-villain redemption arc thing, I guess, and fix some of the stuff I broke, but I wouldn't know where to start."  
Adam downs his shot and pours himself another one.

"How 'bout you. What're you gonna do once you get your brother back?"

Sam explains about raising Jack, tells some anecdotes. Adam scowls when Sam gets to the parts about Cas, but otherwise the atmosphere is relaxed, and Sam's grateful. He finishes his second beer, and Adam fills the bottom of the Starbucks cup with whiskey again. He rubs the lip of the cup fastidiously with his shirt sleeve before handing it to Sam.

" 'Cause I was drinking from it. Don't want you to end up with alternate universe cooties you're not immune to," he explains. Then laughs and adds, "although the shirt's from the alternate universe too, and I haven't washed it in weeks."

"Gross," Sam says, but he drinks from it anyway. The whiskey is delicious, burns down his throat and sterilizes all his sorrows.

"Smokey, with hints of 136 proof and didn't ask for ID." Adam's smile is contagious, the easy generosity of it, like happiness is a secret he's eager to share.

Sam gulps down his drink, holds his cup out between his cuffed hands for more.

"You remind me of Dean," he says. When he tilts his head, the world tilts too. He doesn't mind in the slightest.

Adam makes a _pfft_ sound between his teeth. "Dean and his idiotic, pasty white ass? I should think not, man."

He pours Sam another shot. Sam drinks it down.

"First of all," Sam says with dignity, "Dean isn't pasty. He's—um."

"Delicate and fair; like fine, white china?" Adam grins and takes a swig straight from the bottle, since he gave up his cup. "Most people would've focused on the 'idiot' part first."

Despite being perhaps a tiny bit drunk, Sam figured that out already. An embarrassed flush heats his cheeks.

"No way, you're bright red," Adam laughs. "You think he's hot."

"I do not," Sam says, affronted by the truth.

"You wanna bang your brother."

"I totally do not."

"Yeah, yeah, you totally do." Adam is laughing hard enough now he has to wipe his eyes on his disgusting shirt. When he’s done, he looks up smirking at Sam.

But then his smile falls away.

He studies Sam while Sam avoids his eyes.

"I was only kidding," he says gently.

Sam takes another sip of his whiskey. The hard edges of the handcuffs scrape against his wrists, and it hurts.

Night's coming on.

Adam pushes his chair away from the table. He's still got the whiskey bottle in his hand.

"I was possessed for a long time," he says. "Nine years. It was—

"Well, it was bad, mostly."

He gets up and motions for Sam to follow him. “Come on. It's bedtime."

Sam struggles to his feet. The combination of alcohol and his inactivity makes him sway at first when he stands, the world a tiny bit dark at the edges. It's not unpleasant.

Adam points down the hall with his whiskey bottle, towards the ratty old bedroom. He hasn't gotten Sam's Taurus out. Sam walks himself down the hall pretty steadily, all things considered. Adam follows, closer than he has in the past.

"Possession's weird, huh?" Adam says. "Sometimes I wasn't sure who was Michael and who was me. Sometimes the borders or whatever got kinda thin. He's a monster, I know—god, do I know—but his perception was.... vast, I guess. Or something."

Adam gestures Sam into the bedroom. He bought one of those battery operated lamps that turn on when you touch the base the first day, when he went to Target. It's got a red lampshade and casts a low glow on the room that makes the stained bedspread, and the sloping, worn out mattress, and the warped veneer nightstand all look better than they really are.

"Sam," he says, "I wouldn't judge you. About Dean. I'm not in a position to, but even if I was, Michael, he— "

Sam goes over to the foot of the bed. Starts to kneel down on the floor.

"No, don't do that, okay?" Adam crowds Sam up the bed a little, comes in close, chest to chest. It traps Sam's hands between them, and Sam thinks for a moment _I could hit him hard from this close, knock him out, I could run._

He doesn't do it though.

"You remind me of Lucifer, Sam. I hope that doesn't hurt you to hear."

Surprisingly, it doesn't.

It's hurt him his whole life, the knowledge there was something not right inside him, whether it was the demon blood, or his feelings for Dean, or his ridiculous, horrifying destiny. Lucifer said himself he and Sam were two of a kind.

But Adam doesn't mean there's something wrong with Sam, that Sam is somehow different, and worse. He means there's something wrong with both of them, together.

Adam unbuttons Sam's overshirt, pulls Sam's hands up and out of the way by the short chain between the handcuffs, so he can get under Sam's tee, to stroke his chest and pinch his nipples. There's nowhere for Sam's bound hands to go so they're useful, so Sam draws them over Adam's head, and around behind his neck like an embrace.

Adam turns them both, backs them down onto the bed, maneuvers them so Sam's laying on his back, and Adam's over him, in the circle of his arms. Sam tries to help but the handcuffs are pretty effective in making him useless, and he has to content himself with lying there like a pillow princess and grinding his hips up against the tent of Adam's slacks. Adam's cock is a hard, long line that Sam wants to get his hands on, and obviously won't be getting the chance.

Adam kisses him, coaxes Sam's lips open with his tongue. He tastes like whiskey, of course; they both do. They kiss open-mouthed, and it's warm and delicious, and since Sam is pretty drunk and Adam's not small and is laying on top of him, even a little literally breathtaking.

Adam's hands are all over Sam, petting and caressing, unzipping Sam's jeans, and taking Sam's cock out and stroking slow and firm.

"Nnn, no fair," Sam complains, "I wanna touch you too." But Adam just laughs.

He crawls down the bed, and slips out from between Sam's arms, pulls Sam's jeans and boxers down over his hips and off. Stands at the foot of the bed and strips.

God, he's beautiful, all hard muscle and rich brown skin burnished copper by the lamplight. Dark nipples on perfect pecs, tattoos on his biceps that Sam wants to lick. He has scars, a lot of them, because where he's from angels aren't friends; and the neurosurgical scar is still visible by one temple, though his hair's grown back around it.

He steps out of his slacks, and his cock springs up to half mast, heavy and mouthwatering, from the black thatch of hair at his groin. And now it's really not fair, because Sam wants to choke on it, and he knows already it's not in the cards.

"Oh come on," Sam absolutely does not whine.

Adam grins, and then goes for the Target bag, pulls out a string of condoms and a bottle of lube. He fists himself fully hard and rolls a condom over his cock. Sam just lies there and watches, but that's what Adam gets for not uncuffing him first.

Adam crawls back onto the bed, nudges Sam's legs apart. He pours out a generous palmful of lube, strokes Sam's cock with one one hand while he breeches him with the fingers of his other, and oh holy god does that feel fine. He fingers Sam 'til he's writhing and moaning, and then finally, finally has the good grace to get his hips between Sam's thighs where they belong, and spear Sam's hole with his cock.

He rocks in fast, and when he's bottomed out, he leans down to kiss Sam, and Sam can finally reach something on Adam again, even if it's just his face, and his beard, and the rough velvet of his hair.

Adam thrusts into Sam and Sam pushes up with his heels to meet him. They're rough and fast, both of them, and it's not long before Adam loses his rhythm, and closes his eyes, and moans long and low. He jacks Sam in earnest then, until Sam's balls draw up tight, and the buzz of pleasure builds low in his groin, takes him up to the edge, and pushes him over, shoots streams of come over Adam's hand and paints them both in strips of white.

 

-*-*-

Sam wakes in the dead of night, with a warm lump of person cuddled up beside him, snoring peacefully.

It's disorienting for a moment, sends a rush of adrenaline through his body. He's never brought anyone back to the bunker before, and Dean—

Ah, right. He's not in the bunker. The sleeper beside him is Adam.

Adam's naked, and Sam's naked except for his shirts. The mattress springs are old and worn out, so there's a valley in the middle of the bed that Sam and Adam have both slid into. They're plastered together; Sam's chest along the curve of Adam's back, Sam's soft cock nestled against Adam's ass, the fronts of Sam's thighs against the backs of Adam's. It's almost too warm where they're touching, and Sam's got dried come in his public hair and on his thighs, but despite that, it feels nice. Safe, and solid—which now that he remembers the situation, it isn't by any stretch. But also cared for, which maybe it is.

He has to piss though, and his mouth taste like roadkill, so he carefully extricates himself from the inert pile of Adam, and when he snakes his hand out from under Adam’s side, it comes to him he isn’t handcuffed.

He's not tied down in any way.

He's free to go.

He—doesn't know what to make of it.

He stands at the bedside and stretches the kinks out of his back. It feels amazing.

His ass is a little sore, in a good way. The sex was really great.

He should probably run, in case when Adam wakes up the endorphins have all worn off and he changes his mind. But he finds he's reluctant; he wants to help Adam get home.

He wanders to the bathroom by himself, with no gun at his back; pisses and washes his hands and rinses out his mouth. He's got the niggling beginnings of a hangover headache, but nothing too bad.

When he gets back to the room, Adam is blinking himself awake. Sam stands in the door and watches him yawn and throw off his covers and sit up at the bedside. He's as ruggedly beautiful and perfect as a Roman statue come to life.

"Hey there," Adam says.

"You let me go," Sam replies. "Thank you."

Adam shrugs. "You're still here. Thank you too."

“You can pay me back in sex.”

Adam laughs. It’s a good look on him. Sam would like to see it more.

“So if you’re trusting me not to take off, does that mean you’re coming back to the bunker with me too?”

“Man, you’re stubborn,” Adam says, “But yeah.”

“Okay. Okay, good. I mean, that’s really great, I’m happy. You’ll get to go home.”

Ironically, Sam thinks he’s maybe not gonna be as unambiguously happy to see the last of Adam as he would’ve been two days ago, when they liked each other less. He’ll be going—alone—into danger that Sam’s none to sure he’ll survive. And Sam will never know, one way or the other.

“Yeah,” Adam says. He seems less thrilled than he might be too.

Hmm.

Sam takes off his overshirt, and drops it to the floor. Pulls his T-shirt over his head.

“Want to make a down payment first?” he asks.

Adam laughs again.

This time, Sam uses his hands.

 

-*-*-

Sam would like to say after that it’s easy.

Adam gives him his phone back, and Sam starts making calls.

Cas is—not without reason—suspicious, and Sam can almost see him squinting skeptically on the other end of the line. He thinks to ask if Sam is in a 'funky town' though, and when Sam denies duress, he eases off a little. Rowena is unimpressed, and says _oh Samuel_ in that special tone she has that means _why are you so difficult,_ and only agrees to casting the spell after Sam bribes her with temporary access to the _Black Grimoire_. Jules wants the AU hunters all present when Rowena casts the spell, but Adam wants none of them present, and Jules’ tone suggests his fears aren’t baseless.

Jack and Mom at least are neutral though, and the drive back to the bunker goes well too. Sam’s “Chief” cred gets the AU hunters sullenly out the bunker door and onto missions. And although the fruit from the Tree of Life turn out not to have aged well, and are now marred with ugly rotten spots, Rowena says _they’ll just have to do._

The rift opens in a blaze of yellow light. Adam stands beside it, looking no different than when Michael rode him in. The leave-taking feels awkward. They hug and Sam says _be careful, tell your mom I said hi,_ and Adam says _I don’t know how to thank you, I hope you find Dean soon,_ and then he steps through into another world and is gone.


	5. Chapter 5

[Epilogue]

It's unseasonably cold for February in Lebanon, when a shimmering twist of light appears in the bunker's library.

"Sam! Sam! Get in here!" Dean calls.

Sam rushes in from the kitchen. Dean's got his angel blade out, and Sam grabs his too. The line of light expands into a golden tear and reveals a snowy forest on the other side.

The pressure changes with a pop, and Adam Winchester steps through. Beside him is a stately older woman, with warm brown skin and short cropped black hair. She's wearing fatigues and carrying an assault rifle.

"Saamm!" Adam catches Sam up in a hug.

Jack comes in from his room, and Mary from the gun range. Cas arrives from outside, and if Adam minds, he shrugs it off with relative ease. The woman, as Sam guessed immediately, is Adam's mother, and introductions get made all the way around. Snacks get distributed, and Dean's best whiskey comes down off its place of pride on the bookshelf. Catching up turns into stories, that turn into reminiscence about everyone's lives on both sides of the rift.

"I'm sorry we're late," Adam says. "It took us a while to convince Raphael to spare the grace."

Adam's mother pulls a necklace out from under her shirt. The pendant is a swirling vial of bright blue-white. Since Sam expected to see Adam again never, if anything he's wonderfully early.

"Not that I'm not thrilled to see you," Sam says, "but what are you doing here exactly?"

"Officially, reconnaissance. Heaven's become divided on angel/human relations since the discovery of a world the Apocalypse didn't destroy. Raphael's faction wants to negotiate ties." Adam smiles at Sam over the rim of his whiskey glass. "Really though, we came to visit. I told you the angels owed me."

"That's great." Sam's chest feels warm inside, and his cheeks are getting sore from smiling. He's never thought of himself as much for sentimentality, but he's happy, and that's a rare enough feeling he wants to savor it while he can.

"Thank you for your part in my rescue," Adam's mother adds. "We didn't know if your brother would be here when we arrived or not, Sam. But it seems like even though he's back, you could still use our help."

She nods at Dean, who is at pouring himself another shot. There are stress lines between his eyes from Michael banging on the door inside his head. The coffin he built at Donna's cabin is downstairs in the garage. They're doing good now, but happiness seldom comes unmixed for Winchesters. Adam's mother isn't wrong.

"And after our Michael's taken care of, Adam told me about your Michael, in the Cage," she continues. She lays a hand on her son's shoulder in casual, protective intimacy. "I'd like your Adam to be able to go home too. I understand it's dangerous though, and I'm afraid it might take quite a while. We wouldn't want to impose on your hospitality. How does that all sound to you, Sam?

Sam looks around the room, and how crowded it is with his family. It's not something he would ever have expected. Mom is talking to Cas about weapons training for the AU hunters. Dean and Jack are showing Adam Dad's journal. Dad's gone back to the past, but he was just here too.

So much potential for heartache gathered in such a small place. And so much happiness too. It all sounds terrifying. And wonderful. It all sounds fine.

 


End file.
